Stone-Age Skeletons Unearthed In Sahara Desert

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Archaeologists have uncovered 20 Stone-Age skeletons in and
around a rock shelter in Libya's Sahara desert, according to a
new study.

The skeletons date between 8,000 and 4,200 years ago, meaning the
burial place was used for millennia.

"It must have been a place of memory," said study co-author Mary
Anne Tafuri, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge.
"People throughout time have kept it, and they have buried their
people, over and over, generation after generation."

About 15 women and children were buried in the rock shelter,
while five men and juveniles were buried under giant stone heaps
called tumuli outside the shelter during a later period, when the
region turned to
desert.

The findings, which are detailed in the March issue of the
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, suggest the culture
changed with the climate.

Millennia of burials

From about 8,000 to 6,000 years ago, the Sahara
desert region, called Wadi Takarkori, was filled with scrubby
vegetation and seasonal green patches. Stunning rock art depicts
ancient herding animals, such as cows, which require much more
water to graze than the current environment could support, Tafuri
said.

To date the skeletons, Tafuri measured the remains for
concentrations of isotopes, or molecules of the same element with
different weights.

The team concluded that
the skeletons were buried over four millennia, with most of
the remains in the rock shelter buried between 7,300 and 5,600
years ago.

The males and juveniles under the stone heaps were buried
starting 4,500 years ago, when the region became more arid. Rock
art confirms the dry up, as the cave paintings began to depict
goats, which need much less water to graze than cows, Tafuri
said.

The ancient people also grew up not far from the area where they
were buried, based on a comparison of isotopes in tooth enamel,
which forms early in childhood, with elements in the nearby
environment.

Shift in culture?

The findings suggest the burial place was used for millennia by
the same group of people. It also revealed a divided society.

"The exclusive use of the rock shelter for female and sub-adult
burials points to a persistent division based on gender," wrote
Marina Gallinaro, a researcher in African studies at Sapienza
University of Rome, who was not involved in the study, in an
email to LiveScience.

One possibility is that during the earlier period, women had a
more critical role in the society, and families may have even
traced their descent through the female line. But once the Sahara
began its inexorable expansion into the region about 5,000 years
ago, the culture shifted and men's prominence may have risen as a
result, Gallinaro wrote.

The region as a whole is full of hundreds of sites yet to be
excavated, said Luigi Boitani, a biologist at Sapienza University
of Rome, who has worked on archaeological sites in the region but
was not involved in the study.

"The area is an untapped treasure," Boitani said.

The new discovery also highlights the need to protect the fragile
region, which has been closed to archaeologists since the
revolution that ousted dictator
Moammar el Gadhafi.

Takarkori is very close to the main road that leads from Libya
into neighboring Niger, so rebels and other notorious political
figures, such as Gadhafi's sons, have frequently passed through
the area to escape the country, he said.

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